Regular readers will have noticed a slowing of posts – this isn't blog fatigue. My laptop has terminal symptoms and I'm in the process of replacing it. So blogging opportunities are a bit limited.
Is there a Laptop Funeral Liturgy out there? All you imaginative, contextual and practical theologians – are there appropriate words and prayers for a dying computer – loss of memory (RAM), terminal slowness (AGE), loss of communication (wi-fi and cable!), the detectable disintegration of the life force (processor / Hard Drive). And words of thanksgiving for a friend who has put up with my thinking and writing, surfing and downloading, key-board hammering and frantic mouse movements for years. It wouldn't be true to say nobody had a bad word to say about my computer – I often did! Nor that it never did anyone any harm – it lost a lot of my stuff!
But it has been a long time companion; there are many things I couldn't have done without it. It has kept me in touch with hundreds of people, dozens of colleagues and many a friend. It shares my enthusiasm for photographs and has happily stored years of digital images which are part of the story of my life. It has travelled 17000 miles a year with me for the past 4 years, and apart fro cracked casing is still in one piece.
So a prayer of thanksgiving for a Laptop to celebrate how a wee machine can be such an important part of life. OK – that has gone as far as it can go. It's a flipping computer not a person; technology not human; disposable, replaceable and obsolete – unlike human beings.
Next week or so I'll post when I can.
Leave a Reply